Bernardo Silva warns it's six points or bust in title race as Man City prepare for seismic five days in their season
Bernardo Silva has warned his Manchester City team-mates that failure to secure six points from a potentially seismic five days in their season could end their hopes of retaining the title.
City face Everton at Goodison Park on Wednesday night before hosting Chelsea on Sunday, and Silva said it will be “very difficult” to compete for the league if they fail to win both matches.
Pep Guardiola’s side bounced back from a shock defeat at Newcastle United last week by dismantling Arsenal in an impressive performance at the Etihad on Sunday.
“We knew after the Newcastle defeat that we had to give a response to that game in front of our fans,” Silva said. “We are very happy with the way we played - it was a good performance and we are back to winning ways so mentally it is very good for us.
“Now we have two very difficult games against Everton and Chelsea which we want to win. If we don’t, it will start getting very difficult to fight for this Premier League.”
City had won eight matches in a row before that defeat against Newcastle but Silva said there were areas in need of improvement despite the winning run.
“We know we have to improve even though we have some fantastic performances,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t play as well as we want to. We have to improve that, to see which mistakes we are making.
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“The atmosphere in the dressing room is fantastic, everybody is trying to help each other to improve and to try to help the team-mate next to you so we just want to be the better players game by game, to try to be a better team and to try win some titles at the end of the season.”
Meanwhile, City midfielder Ilkay Gundogan has said that Liverpool’s lighter fixture load could give them a major advantage over Guardiola’s side, who are still in the hunt for four trophies.
Liverpool are no longer in the FA Cup or League Cup and Gundogan said the lack of midweek games was key to his success at Borussia Dortmund, when he won the league title under Jurgen Klopp.
Comparing Klopp and Guardiola, Gundogan said: “They are different in terms of playing style and their characters, but both of them are great people, great human beings that I really like.
“Klopp did not win as much as Pep won - that’s why it was quite surprising when he was able to win two titles in a row with Dortmund in Germany. I just joined them for the second one.
“When you have to run in the season you don’t think about much things. You go out and play. When you have no concerns in your mind you are able to win a lot of times. That’s how I felt when we were able to win at Dortmund that title.
“We had an advantage of just playing Saturday, Saturday, Saturday and the week off in between. He [Klopp] is in a similar situation now with Liverpool – just the Premier League and then the Champions League on top.
“Maybe it’s going to be an advantage for them, I don’t know. It’s nothing we can change right now. They have to play their games and we have to play ours.”
